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This article was published at the end of 2017 to discuss what employers will be looking for from resumes in the new year. Though this article is geared toward “executive resumes,” the tips contained herein are applicable to all administrative or office-focused resumes:

With the approaching New Year, many people will decide it’s time for a new start. This may include new goals, new activities and, maybe, a new job. Despite evolving job search tactics, the traditional resume remains one of the most important tools in the job search toolbox. In 2018, executives will be able to locate, create and apply to positions in a variety of ways, but at some point in the hiring process, a resume is likely to be requested. This is why you need a modern resume for modern times.

Recently, I participated in a podcast comprised of industry experts to dissect and discuss important resume requirements and trends. Some of the tips, ongoing necessities and “what’s next” insights for executive resumes in 2018 included the following five points.

1. Customize content.

One of the most important modern resume strategies is content customization. Hands down, this tactic must be applied to increase resume success. Regardless of whether a resume is read by a human or a machine, customizing details, results, facts, skills and keywords in the file is paramount to getting the resume processed through to the interview stage. The reasoning behind this is simple. Readers are short on time and want to know “what’s in it for me” — fast.

Hiring authorities don’t want to dig for results, read unrelated content or make assumptions. They want to know in a short, succinct fashion how a candidate’s skills and abilities will benefit their open position. So tell them, removing anything that doesn’t directly support the case.

2. Make your value known.

The top tip that I share with all of my executive clients is to infuse a resume with value. In close relation to the first point above, value must be aligned with employer requirements.

Having developed hundreds of resumes for executives, I know that a resume only has a small amount of time and space to convey value to a reader. When partnering with executives on the development of resumes, my goal is to help each individual distinguish their value proposition and then work to succinctly support this proposition throughout the resume. When you write your own resume, you must do the same.

To succeed at making your value known you must know yourself, know your audience and know what matters. You can read more about the process of making your value known in my recent article.

3. Prove your claims.

In order to captivate a reader, executive resumes require more than just strong, tailored content. They also need proof: proof of the communications expertise or business leadership one claims to possess. Saying you are good at something and providing clear evidence of it are two different things. In an executive resume, one must prove their claims.

Supporting evidence lies in measurable impacts, specific quantities and strong metrics generated during a career. If you increased revenue, drove new initiatives or collaborated closely with others, you must provide clear examples of how the application of skills resulted in positive business outcomes.

Support all resume statements with concrete achievements or success. Even better, quantify facts as often as possible, answering how many, how much and how often.

An example of a weak statement:

* Employed excellent communication skills to successfully lead a team through the creation and delivery of a new marketing strategy, which produced significant revenues.

Now a stronger, results-focused statement:

* Generated $6 million in new revenues in just 18 months by directing a team of 20 to create and execute a new marketing strategy.

4. Lead with results.

Once you’ve identified critical content and rich results from throughout your career, lead with them. This means front-loading the resume with results to create immediate connection and greater impact.

As an executive leader, you understand the value of measurable outcomes and you appreciate getting to the point. Long-winded resume summaries, statements and bullet points diminish the impact and bury key content. Leading with results ensures you spoon feed the reader what they want first. You answer questions before they can be asked, and you align proof points with position requirements.

In addition, front-loaded points powerfully position strengths and build the readers’ appreciation of capabilities.

Weaker, end-loaded statement:

* Employed longer sales cycle to close accounts in historically challenging European territory to grow new business revenue 156% over two years.

Stronger, front-loaded statement:

* Grew new business revenue 156% over two years in the European market, employing a longer sales cycle to close accounts in historically challenging territory.

5. Adapt for ATS.

Despite the demand to market oneself uniquely, keep in mind that the majority of major organizations use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)to scan submitted applications.

ATS is a software application that supports electronic handling of recruitment requirements, such as resume screening. It is estimated that the majority of major companies now use these systems to screen incoming resumes. When applying for a position online, be aware that an ATS is likely screening your resume. As such, you won’t be able to navigate the application process effectively if you don’t have a full understanding of ATS.

In addition, a resume that is not ATS-compliant is unlikely to ever be selected as a match, regardless of the candidate’s actual qualifications for a role. Of course, each ATS is unique, so getting your resume through the system requires a strong understanding of common ATS practices.

Finally, what’s next for executive resumes?

Bolder creations and modern design tactics that support more effective, modern job search approaches like networking and referrals will continue to rise. Visually stimulating resumes employ unique formats, layouts, color, charts or graphics to segregate key content and naturally guide a reader’s eye.

The trick to a well-balanced visual resume is not to go overboard. Design should not distract from compelling content but work hand-in-hand to produce impact. Finally, remember that these creative resumes are intended for review by an actual human and may not always be ATS-compliant — but working around the system is exactly where the focus will be for job seekers in 2018 and beyond.

On October 12, 2017, Governor Jerry Brown of California signed into law a state-wide ban on employer inquiries into an individual’s salary history. The new law (AB 168) will apply to all employers, including state and local governments, and will take effect on January 1, 2018.

Under AB 168, no employer may rely on an applicant’s prior salary history “as a factor in determining whether to offer employment . . . or what salary to offer an applicant.” Salary history information includes both an individual’s rate of compensation as well as other benefits. Moreover, an employer cannot-orally or in writing, directly or indirectly-seek this type of information about an applicant. Accordingly, employers and their agents can no longer ask candidates, or their current or former employers, what candidates have earned in the past. An employer must, upon reasonable request, provide an applicant with the pay scale assigned to the position sought.

There are certain exceptions to the salary history restriction. First, employers may review and consider salary history information that is publicly available pursuant to federal or state law. Second, salary history may be discussed if an applicant “voluntarily and without prompting” discloses his or her history to a potential employer. In that event, the employer may consider and rely on that history in setting that applicant’s salary.

This article by R. Kay Green was first published on the Huffington Post in 2013

It is no secret that in this day and age, online presence = brand awareness. In fact, most marketing experts agree that how you present your brand online is the 21st century equivalent of your first meeting with a customer. Your online brand is what people think of you when you are not available. In fact, your online brand is as important as any of the traditional forms of branding and becoming more important each day. Most customers today are technologically savvy and typically rely on a company’s online presence as a validity test of its credibility in the market.

In the competitive-age we live in, in order for your brand to succeed online, it must be highly recognizable, relatable, and authentic; thereby setting itself apart from the competition. High visibility of your brand increases credibility and customers will be more willing to retain your product/services. Creating an online brand presence is about capturing the attention of the targeted audience. At present, consumer’s today look to connect directly with business owners and hear their stories before they make a decision on whether to buy their products/services. With that in mind, let’s examine seven key insights as to how to effectively maximize your online brand presence:

1. Be Consistent With Branding. Ask yourself one question: “What is my business really about?” It is very important to display a consistent branding strategy across all online channels. This creates brand recognition and helps to reinforce the brand. It is common for a business to use several channels to reach out to customers. For example, a business may use its website, several social networks, blogs, document sharing sites, and more.

2. Optimize Your Website. As we know, creating and maintaining a website is one of the most important branding tools for any business. Website optimization for optimal performance on search engines is one of the first things companies can do to drive traffic to a website and improve the brand’s visibility.

3. Social Media. Social Media Marketing is one of the most effective and cost effective ways to promote both small businesses and corporations; and, enhance the visibility of your brand. Social Media Marketing promotes visibility, brand loyalty, recognition, and can also grow your sales. In addition, social media marketing allows small businesses and established ones to compete with an advantage. It enables businesses to reach worldwide audiences.

4. Produce and Distribute Great Quality Content. Creating and distributing quality content is the best way to gain visibility online. It is one of the most effective marketing strategies to promote your business and create brand recognition online. Creating quality content has become essential to any successful marketing strategy today.

5. Press Release Marketing. Press release distribution is a very effective and inexpensive way to enhance brand visibility and recognition. If it is picked up by Google News, your company will receive additional coverage for your brand.

6. Leverage Video Marketing. Businesses of all sizes and scale can benefit from video marketing i.e., YouTube, Vimeo, Metcafe, etc. Posting branded videos relevant to your niche is a very effective way to promote your business, drive traffic to your website, and get your brand noticed in front of a targeted audience.

7. Start a Blog. Having a blog can enhance brand visibility and improve your chances of success. In fact, blogging is one of the most effective ways to improve the visibility of your brand online. Blogging greatly improves your search engine rank, establishes validity in your brand and increases reach. In addition, blogging helps to cultivate relationships with customers and other influencers.

As a final point, when creating an online brand presence, don’t attempt to create your online brand like any other brand in the market. Be authentic. If you can be open and honest with yourself about your brand’s value, you will be able to authenticate this value when creating your online brand presence.

Internships have become a rite of passage in the United States for many aspiring workers. There are published estimates indicating that that “70 to 75 percent of students at four year [colleges] undertake at least one internship.” See Ross Perlin, Intern Nation: How to Learn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy (Verso 2012) at 26.

Many of those internships are unpaid (Id. at 27), which raises a substantial legal question about-and the specter of substantial liability for-failing to treat “interns”as employees. To further complicate the matter, the legal test for determining just who qualifies as a true intern, and who must be treated as an employee entitled to wages and benefits, has not always been clear.

Indeed, the law regarding unpaid internships is in conflict at the federal appellate court level.In contrast, the State of California has established a relatively clear set of guidelines to follow to ascertain when an “intern” must be paid the minimum wage and provided with employment benefits. In most cases, however, employers must comply with both state and federal law.

FEDERAL STANDARDS

Nine years after the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA, 29 U.S.C. §§ 201, et seq.) was enacted by Congress, the Supreme Court issued a brief decision carving an exception to the protections embedded in what was then a relatively new law. The Court decided that persons who were given training by a railroad company before they were eligible to be hired were not ’employees’ under the FLSA during the course of that training.For that reason, the railroad was not required to pay the trainees the minimum wage set out by the FLSA during the approximately week-long training.

See Walling v. Portland Terminal Co., 330 U.S. 148, 152-153 (1947).

Over the years since the Portland Terminal decision was handed down, the DOL has articulated six key factors that must be met in order to avoid having a “trainee” classified as employee. The factors are:

1.The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;

2.The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;

3.The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;

4.The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage fromthe activities of the intern;

and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;

5.The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship;and

6.The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.

This article by F. John Reh was last updated on thebalance.com on August 8 of this year. I included it in The Temptimes because keeping a productive office and an organized office are two inextricably linked goals. Since the Monroe theme of October is organization, this seemed an apropos edition to our blog collection. Enjoy!

In 1906, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto created a mathematical formula to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in his country. Pareto observed that twenty percent of the people owned eighty percent of the wealth. In the late 1940s, quality guru, Dr. Joseph M. Juran, attributed the 80/20 Rule to Pareto, calling it Pareto’s Principle. Pareto’s Principle or Pareto’s Law is a useful tool to help you prioritize and manage the work in your life.

This article offers an overview of the rule and examples, and how it can help you improve your personal and professional productivity and effectiveness.

What It Means

The 80/20 Rule means that in any situation, 20 percent of the inputs or activities are responsible for 80 percent of the outcomes or results. In Pareto’s case, it meant 20 percent of the people owned 80 percent of the wealth. In Juran’s initial work applying the 80/20 rule to quality studies, he identified 20 percent of the defects causing 80 percent of the problems. Project managers know that 20 percent of the work (the first 10 percent and the last 10 percent) consume 80 percent of the time and resources.

Where Should You Keep Your Money?

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20% of our employees are responsible for 80% of sick days.

20% of my ideas generate 80% of my traffic on my blog.

There are a nearly unlimited number of examples that we tend to apply the 80/20 rule to in our personal and working lives. Most of the time, we are referencing Pareto’s Rule without applying rigorous mathematical analysis to the situation.

We generalize about this 80/20 metric, but even with this sloppy math, the ratio is uncannily common in our world.

7 Areas the 80/20 Rule Can Help Your Productivity:

If you scrutinize the items on your “To Do” list, chances are just a few of the items are tied to important issues. While we may take satisfaction in crossing a large number of the smaller issues off our task lists, the 80/20 rule suggests we should focus on the few, larger items that will generate the most significant results. The list might not grow much shorter, but you will be practicing effective prioritization.

In assessing risks for an upcoming project, not every risk carries equal significance. Select the top risks that pose the highest potential for damage (given the probability of occurrence) and focus your monitoring and risk planning activities on those items. Don’t ignore the others, however, distribute your focus proportionately.

As a sales representative, work hard to understand the attributes of the 20 percent of your customers that make up the majority of your revenues and invest your prospecting time on identifying and qualifying similar customers.

Regularly evaluate the 80 percent of your customers that generate approximately 20 percent of your business and identify opportunities to shed those customers for those that drive better results. Some managers and firms actively cull their customer listings every few years, effectively firing the bottom performing customers.

If you work in customer support or a call center, look for the 80/20 distribution where 80 percent of your customer calls or support issues are attributable to either 20 percent of your offerings or 20 percent of your total number of customers. For the offerings generating all of the calls, focus on root cause analysis to identify quality or documentation issues, and then take corrective action. For the high call volume customers, strive to understand the reason for their calls and offer alternative methods of obtaining answers.

Entrepreneurs, soloists, and independent professionals should evaluate their workloads and assess whether the gross majority of their time is spent chasing small value activities, including administrative work that is easily and inexpensively outsourced.

When evaluating your mid-year progress on your goals, focus on the few goals or activities that are most critical to your development or success. Similar to the task list, not all duties and goals are created equal.

Practical Limits to the 80/20 Rule:

As we’ve explored, the 80/20 Rule has many applications in our work and personal lives. However, there are opportunities to misapply this tool and make critical mistakes.

You should not focus on just the 20 percent of top performers on your team at the expense of the other 80 percent. You are accountable for increasing the number of top performers as well as assessing and potentially eliminating those who are consistently poor performers.

The 80/20 rule might suggest reducing the level of diversification you strive for with investments. Careful attention must be paid to your overall portfolio mix and adjustments made if only 20 percent of your investments are driving 80 percent of the results.

While 20 percent of the time invested in a project through planning and execution might generate the majority of the results or progress, you cannot afford to ignore the details of the initiative.

The Bottom Line:

Pareto’s Principle or the 80/20 Rule is a useful construct when analyzing our efforts and outcomes. It is priceless when applied to task or goal lists, and it provides a useful analytical framework for many problem situations. Use it liberally, but don’t accept it as an absolute or you are likely to misstep.

This is an excerpt of an article that was last updated on August 22, 2016, on the balance.com

Image courtesy of the thebalance.com

Career management isn’t just a nice-to, it’s a must do if you expect to gain maximum success and happiness from the hours you invest in work. Face it, you are likely going to work 40 hours a week for your adult life. Why not make it the best 40 hours that you can create?

Career management in which you plan and work to obtain new skills, capabilities, and experiences, is the answer. Share your goals with your boss and you have a partner who can help you broaden your experience.

When most employees think about their careers, they have not thought past their current job or the next promotion that they’d like to receive. They need to broaden their short term thinking. As employees are promoted up the organization chart, fewer jobs become available, yet continuing to grow skills and experience should still be a priority for people obtaining value from their career.

Here are a few ways in which you can collaborate with your boss to manage your career.

Job shadow other employees in your company to learn about different jobs.

It’s the slow season at work, and if you waste one more day playing “wastebasket ball”, you’re going to go crazy. But all your work for the day is done, and aside from counting down the minutes until lunch break, you’re out of ideas for things to do. Take control of your extra time and try these 10 ideas for productive things to do to fill your slow days at work.

EVALUATE GOALS AND INTENTIONS

Both professional and personal intentions for the upcoming months or year are crucial for growth and prosperity. Make your intentions visible for you to see every day and share them with freely with others — so take time to evaluate your current goals and intentions, and consider setting some new ones.

IMPROVE A PROCESS

“Noises” always come up when you’re running a process; especially a process is dynamic and changing all the time. To better your work and enhance your productivity, use the slow times to evaluate a particular process you use rather frequently and create more efficient ways to work.

MAKE A TO-DO LIST

It’s hard to be productive when you’re low on mental energy. Try to manage your time wisely and organize your specific activities prior to the start of the day. The best way is to make a TO-DO LIST, which helps you to choose and complete tasks with better focus, and to reflect on your overall role and whether you’re achieving your larger objectives.

TIDY DESK, TIDY MIND

On a normal day, it can be hard to find the time to organize your files properly. On slow days, clean off your desk, label your folders, clean up your inbox and archive your emails, and otherwise straighten out your notes and files. That way, you’ll be more prepared when you get busy again.

GET AHEAD

Your work for the day may be done, but what about tomorrow’s work? Or next week’s work? If there’s anything you can do to get ahead, DO IT. Your workday may be slow today, but you never know when a crisis will hit and interfere with your regular workload.

FIND A NEW PROJECT

It never hurts to ask your supervisors for an extra project if you’ve run out of things to do. They will be impressed by your initiative, plus you won’t be bored anymore. Make sure this is just a side project without a strict deadline though, in case you do get busy.

HELP YOUR COLLEAGUES

Take a walk around the office and check in with your colleagues. If anyone looks overwhelmed, offer to help them out with something. Not only will you be building a rapport with your co-workers, but you’ll be able to call in a favor in the future if you ever need some help yourself.

NETWORK WITH OTHERS

When you’re busy, your calls to clients are likely short and straight to the point. Take advantage of your free time and make a few courtesy calls to your customers, just to chat and check in; or write a thank you card. Building good relationships with your clients will help you to become more well-known in your industry.

READ ARTICLES

Stay informed about your industry by subscribing to newsletters and reading the latest news in your field. Staying knowledgeable will give you an edge over your colleagues. If your industry is slow, read articles about current events instead to keep yourself up-to-date on world news.

EXERCISE DAILY

It’s time to take action when you’re feeling bored. Exercising before work will give you an extra energy boost to carry you through the day. When you’re in the office, you can lift 5 pounds weights, or do some yoga and stretching poses designed to be done anytime and anywhere. Taking a quick break and walking around the block also refreshes and reenergizes.